First, check “parrotlect flickrstream” along the left margin here for my favorite 45 fotos from the start of the Great Chesapeake Schooner Race last week. I had posted some of them earlier, but put them up in the moment and without the benefit of my “foto-cleanup” tools.

Here is the real predecessor for this post . . . small specialized East coast designs. And here’s a question . . . guess the loa and beam of this vessel. Answer and fotos follow.

Some small craft are just beautiful . . . sweet

not to emphasize the “just” there. Seriously sweet lines here.

And here. And nearby but in the shadows was a twin called Puffin. And that vintage Johnson Sea horse 18 was attached to the

the prettiest motorboat I’ve ever seen. I don’t think that Johnson comes with the blender attachment seen here!!

This is Silk. Silk is a pushboat. Believe it or not, it’s the prime mover for a 65′ skipjack, and while hauling for oysters, Silk needs to be hanging high and dry. I regret I didn’t get a chance to look at the engine.

And here’s a surprise, maybe. The vessel in the top foto here is a restored 1925 Hooper Island Draketail named Peg Wallace, measuring a belief-defying 37’6″ loa with a beam of only 6’8″!! I’d written of local Chesapeake and southern boats here almost two years ago, but this was my first encounter with a draketail. Scroll down to pete44’s comment here to learn his sense of the origin of the design.

I’d love to see her move through the water.

Draketail . . . named for a duck. Make way!

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

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